File:The book of the garden (1853) (20406839621).jpg

Title: The book of the garden
Identifier: bookofgarden11853mcin (find matches)
Year: 1853 (1850s)
Authors: McIntosh, Charles, 1794-1864
Subjects: Gardening
Publisher: Edinburgh and London, W. Blackwood
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Fig. 868.—An urn, selected from many others of various degrees of merit, from the stock of the Grange- mouth Coal and Fire- clay Works. We have here a vase evidently intended for its legiti- mate use in garden de- coration, and not to be desecrated into a mere flower-pot. Such vases associate well in con- nection with Grecian, Eoman, or even modern Italian architecture. The material employed in this establishment, like that we have no- ticed in Section Fur- naces, page 253, as used in the Garnkirk Works, contains a large amount of silica and alumina, both of the most essential use in the produc- tion of an infusible tire-clay. From the same firm we received, but too late for insertion, drawings of a very ornamental and novel smoke-flue, made of fire-clay, and forming a very neat balustrading. Sun-dials.—Sun-dials are both orna- mental and useful. Their position always should be that of full exposure to the sun. A taste for dials appears to have been much greater formerly in this country than at present. No doubt, watches and clocks were not then common; and as men measured time by them, they would be set up as conveniently to their dwellings as possible. These, from being an article of use, would lead to their being intro- duced in grounds as an article of decora- tion. Fine specimens of ancient dials exist in the flower-gardens at Drummond Castle, Newbattle Abbey, and elsewhere. Indeed, where they have escaped the frenzy of reform, they seem as faithful chronicles to inform us that a taste for gar- den decoration existed in ages long gone by. 4 Fig. 870 represents one of the two ancient dials at the latter place—both being 15 feet in height, and similar in design. They are placed on modern base- ments, giving them an elevation in excellent keeping with their size and importance. From the initials (in the absence of date) S^9, they must have stood there for two cen- turies at the least. The panels under those on which the initials and arms of the ancient family of Kerr are cut, form each a separate dial- plate, and are in the highest state of pre- servation. Those at Drummond Castle are in the form of obelisks of great height and symme- try, and, after the manner of the times in which they were constructed, have many concave dial- plates cut on their sides. Here, as at Newbattle, the dials are placed in gar- dens, in the formal Although the dial has now ceased Fig. 870.
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